The employees in the Public Revenue Office (PRO) and other state institutions as well as taxpayers will improve knowledge through trainings in the new PRO educational centre – Tax Academy, which will grow into a centre where tax administration from the region of South East Europe will be educated from the middle of 2013.

The beginning of the work was marked Sunday by Deputy PM and Finance Minister Zoran Stavreski and PRO director Goran Trajkovski signing charter for start of academy work.

The education through Tax Academy will be realised in four stages. The first stage includes PRO employees, in the second stage employees in the state institutions that cooperate with PRO will be included, the third stage includes private and other subject that their activity is connected with PRO. The fourth stage is regional tax academy, which is to start from the middle of 2013 intended to train tax administration from the region of South East Europe and is expected to contribute to reduce tax evasion at regional level.

The fact that Tax Academy will conduct trainings for the neighbouring countries as well shows that PRO reputation in the international institutions and in the public is getting bigger and better and that credibility, which was built in the past years, enables us to grow into institution, that have advantage in quality in the region, Stavreski said.

Stavreski also underlined that in recently published World Bank report on tax payments, Macedonia was ranked fourth in the world according to general tax rate and to the tax payment level. Effective tax rate in Macedonia of 9.7% is the fourth lowest in the world and the level of tax payments is also among the best in the world, Stavreski said.

I am convinced that through Tax Academy we will succeed to educate personnel and to develop tools and instruments that PRO has at disposal aimed at growing into real partner to business community and to have adequate quality which will be necessary for the period when Macedonia will become EU member, Stavreski said.

PRO director Goran Trajkovski informed that after today’s promotion of the Tax Academy the training of the employees in Customs Administration will begin on Tuesday. In the future we will try to bring more high-quality lecturers for tax employees and the business community, to bring the best from Europe and the world. We will offer best quality and free of charge training for all interested individuals. The functioning of the academy is fully financed by the Public Revenue Office, Trajkovski said.

John Brondolo, senior economist at IMF’s Fiscal Affairs Department, assessed that in the past several years IMF with financial assistance of the Dutch Government established system for strengthening tax administration in Macedonia. With great commitment of the employees, PRO succeeded to grow into modern administration and as a result of the undertaken activities, IMF missions for technical assistance assessed that PRO succeed to fulfil goals of tax payment and to alleviate harmonisation requested by taxpayers towards the PRO, Brondolo said.